After a month of testing nootropics, I’m not ready to commit to them permanently. They’re simply too untested, and while “move fast and break things” might be a good approach to building software, it’s not what I want for my brain. Still, I think we’ll likely hear more about nootropics, especially as recreational users of more powerful prescription drugs like Adderall and modafinil look for less harsh alternatives. Sometimes, when you’re working, you don’t want to put your brain on jet fuel—a little unleaded gas will do. And for those moments, nootropics could be a fertile testing ground for the intrepid body-hacker.
When you drink tea, you’re getting some caffeine (less than the amount in coffee), plus an amino acid called L-theanine that has been shown in studies to increase activity in the brain’s alpha frequency band, which can lead to relaxation without drowsiness. These calming-but-stimulating effects might contribute to tea’s status as the most popular beverage aside from water. People have been drinking it for more than 4,000 years, after all, but modern brain hackers try to distill and enhance the benefits by taking just L-theanine as a nootropic supplement. Unfortunately, that means they’re missing out on the other health effects that tea offers. It’s packed with flavonoids, which are associated with longevity, reduced inflammation, weight loss, cardiovascular health, and cancer prevention.
In 2011, a story surfaced that struck fear into many: A woman was being treated for brain and memory disorders, when in reality she was just incredibly low in B12 stores. Turns out, this isn’t uncommon; many physicians don’t run routine blood tests for the nutrient, which is especially troublesome considering that our ability to absorb B12 is dramatically reduced with age. Over time, low vitamin B12 can do a number of your cognition.
3 days later, I’m fairly miserable (slept poorly, had a hair-raising incident, and a big project was not received as well as I had hoped), so well before dinner (and after a nap) I brew up 2 wooden-spoons of Malaysia Green (olive-color dust). I drank it down; tasted slightly better than the first. I was feeling better after the nap, and the kratom didn’t seem to change that.
Vinh Ngo, a San Francisco family practice doctor who specializes in hormone therapy, has become familiar with piracetam and other nootropics through a changing patient base. His office is located in the heart of the city’s tech boom and he is increasingly sought out by young, male tech workers who tell him they are interested in cognitive enhancement.
Eugeroics (armodafinil and modafinil) – are classified as "wakefulness promoting" agents; modafinil increased alertness, particularly in sleep deprived individuals, and was noted to facilitate reasoning and problem solving in non-ADHD youth.[23] In a systematic review of small, preliminary studies where the effects of modafinil were examined, when simple psychometric assessments were considered, modafinil intake appeared to enhance executive function.[27] Modafinil does not produce improvements in mood or motivation in sleep deprived or non-sleep deprived individuals.[28]
Blinding stymied me for a few months since the nasty taste was unmistakable and I couldn’t think of any gums with a similar flavor to serve as placebo. (The nasty taste does not seem to be due to the nicotine despite what one might expect; Vaniver plausibly suggested the bad taste might be intended to prevent over-consumption, but nothing in the Habitrol ingredient list seemed to be noted for its bad taste, and a number of ingredients were sweetening sugars of various sorts. So I couldn’t simply flavor some gum.)
Regardless, while in the absence of piracetam, I did notice some stimulant effects (somewhat negative - more aggressive than usual while driving) and similar effects to piracetam, I did not notice any mental performance beyond piracetam when using them both. The most I can say is that on some nights, I seemed to be less easily tired when writing or editing or n-backing (and I felt less tired than ICON 2011 than ICON 2010), but those were also often nights I was also trying out all the other things I had gotten in that order from Smart Powders, and I am still dis-entangling what was responsible. (Probably the l-theanine or sulbutiamine.)
I asked Marcus which nootropic he would want if he were stranded on a desert island. "I guess it would depend on the challenges I was facing on the island. If staying healthy was the biggest challenge, then I'd choose AC-11," he said. "If I needed to stay motivated to rebuild the village, I would choose Mucuna [pruriens]. If I was hunting, I'd choose Huperzia serrata, for mental acuity and speed."
The U. S. nootropics industry was valued at more than $1.3 billion in 2015 and is projected to reach $6 billion by 2024. This growth is due in part to slick marketing from biohacking “experts” such as Dave Asprey (founder of Bulletproof) and Josiah Zayner, Ph.D. (CEO of the Odin), who’ve built big social-media and podcast followings as well as customer bases. At the grassroots level, there are meetups across the country like the one at Idea Coffee, plus a vibrant online community.
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"They're not regulated by the FDA like other drugs, so safety testing isn't required," Kerl says. What's more, you can't always be sure that what's on the ingredient label is actually in the product. Keep in mind, too, that those that contain water-soluble vitamins like B and C, she adds, aren't going to help you if you're already getting enough of those vitamins through diet. "If your body is getting more than you need, you're just going to pee out the excess," she says. "You're paying a lot of money for these supplements; maybe just have orange juice."

Back home, I contacted Aubrey Marcus, whose company Onnit Labs produces Alpha Brain. He attributed my lucid dreaming to increased levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which enhances REM dreaming. Alpha Brain has two ingredients that boost acetylcholine levels: GPC choline, which the body converts to acetylcholine, and Huperzine A, an alkaloid derived from Chinese club moss, also known as Huperzia serrata. "Huperzine A disarms the enzyme that naturally breaks down acetylcholine," Marcus said. "So while the GPC choline is being converted to acetylcholine, the Huperzine A is keeping it from disappearing. It's like plugging the drain and turning on the faucet."

Coconut oil was recommended by Pontus Granström on the Dual N-Back mailing list for boosting energy & mental clarity. It is fairly cheap (~$13 for 30 ounces) and tastes surprisingly good; it has a very bad reputation in some parts, but seems to be in the middle of a rehabilitation. Seth Robert’s Buttermind experiment found no mental benefits to coconut oil (and benefits to eating butter), but I wonder.
It’s 3 p.m., and I am crushing my e-mail inbox. At this time of day, I’m typically struggling to stave off the post-lunch slowdown by downing another cup of coffee or two. But today, message after message is flying off my fingertips effortlessly—work e-mail, personal e-mail, digital errands I’d been meaning to run for months. I’m in the zone, as they say, and for this burst of late afternoon productivity, I might have nootropics to thank.
A study mentioned in Neuropsychopharmacology as of August 2002, showed that Bacopa Monnieri decreases the rate of forgetting newly acquired information, memory consolidations, and verbal learning rate. It also helps in enhancing the nerve impulse transmission, which leads to increased alertness. Also, it is known to relieve the effects of anxiety and depression. All these benefits happen as Bacopa Monnieri dosage helps in activating choline acetyltransferase and inhibiting acetylcholinesterase which enhances the levels of acetylcholine in the brain, a chemical that is also associated in enhancing memory and attention.
Provigil may well confer a temporary advantage on healthy people, but this doesn't mean that it's ready to replace your morning espresso. Anjan Chatterjee told me that there "just aren't enough studies of these drugs in normal people". One study, published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that Provigil can be habit-forming. A group led by Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, scanned the brains of 10 men after they had been given a placebo, and also after they had been given a dose of modafinil. The modafinil appeared to lead to an increase in the brain chemical dopamine. "Because drugs that increase dopamine have the potential for abuse," Volkow's report concluded, "these results suggest that risk for addiction in vulnerable persons merits heightened awareness." (Cephalon, in a response to the report, notes that Provigil's label urges physicians to monitor patients closely, especially those with a history of drug abuse.) On the website Erowid, where people vividly and anonymously report their experiences with legal and illegal drugs, some modafinil users have described a dependency on the drug. One man, who identified himself as a former biochemistry student, said that he had succeeded in kicking cocaine and opiate habits but couldn't stop using modafinil. Whenever he ran out of the drug, he said, "I start to freak out." After "four to five days" without it, "the head fog starts to come back".
(If I am not deficient, then supplementation ought to have no effect.) The previous material on modern trends suggests a prior >25%, and higher than that if I were female. However, I was raised on a low-salt diet because my father has high blood pressure, and while I like seafood, I doubt I eat it more often than weekly. I suspect I am somewhat iodine-deficient, although I don’t believe as confidently as I did that I had a vitamin D deficiency. Let’s call this one 75%.

People with failing memory and worried about Alzheimer’s disease are sometimes seduced by advertisements for Huperzine A, extracted from a type of moss. Some studies have shown that it increases levels of acetylcholine in the brain, a chemical that is in short supply in Alzheimer’s. But despite increasing acetylcholine, aside from a few questionable studies in China, there is no evidence that it improves memory. Unfortunately when it comes to memory pills, they are best forgotten. There is, however, hope that a nasal spray containing insulin can increase the absorption of glucose into brain cells and improve cognitive function. But in the meantime, the best bet to maintain good brain function is to monitor blood glucose and blood pressure, eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and low in simple carbs and saturated fat. And don’t forget that physical exercise also exercises your brain.

Integrity & Reputation: Go with a company that sells more than just a brain formula. If a company is just selling this one item,buyer-beware!!! It is an indication that it is just trying to capitalize on a trend and make a quick buck. Also, if a website selling a brain health formula does not have a highly visible 800# for customer service, you should walk away.
Alex recalled one week during his junior year when he had four term papers due. Minutes after waking on Monday, around 7.30am, he swallowed some "immediate-release" Adderall. The drug, along with a steady stream of caffeine, helped him to concentrate during classes and meetings, but he noticed some odd effects; at a morning tutorial, he explained to me in an email, "I alternated between speaking too quickly and thoroughly on some subjects and feeling awkwardly quiet during other points of the discussion." Lunch was a blur: "It's always hard to eat much when on Adderall." That afternoon he went to the library, where he spent "too much time researching a paper rather than actually writing it - a problem that is common to all intellectually curious students on stimulants". At eight he attended a two-hour meeting "with a group focused on student mental health issues". Alex then "took an extended-release Adderall" and worked productively on the paper all night. At eight the next morning he attended a meeting of his student organisation; he felt like "a zombie" and went back to his room. He fell asleep until noon, waking "in time to polish my first paper and hand it in".
The evidence? In small studies, healthy people taking modafinil showed improved planning and working memory, and better reaction time, spatial planning, and visual pattern recognition. A 2015 meta-analysis claimed that “when more complex assessments are used, modafinil appears to consistently engender enhancement of attention, executive functions, and learning” without affecting a user’s mood. In a study from earlier this year involving 39 male chess players, subjects taking modafinil were found to perform better in chess games played against a computer.
28,61,36,25,61,57,39,56,23,37,24,50,54,32,50,33,16,42,41,40,34,33,31,65,23,36,29,51,46,31,45,52,30, 50,29,36,57,60,34,48,32,41,48,34,51,40,53,73,56,53,53,57,46,50,35,50,60,62,30,60,48,46,52,60,60,48, 47,34,50,51,45,54,70,48,61,43,53,60,44,57,50,50,52,37,55,40,53,48,50,52,44,50,50,38,43,66,40,24,67, 60,71,54,51,60,41,58,20,28,42,53,59,42,31,60,42,58,36,48,53,46,25,53,57,60,35,46,32,26,68,45,20,51, 56,48,25,62,50,54,47,42,55,39,60,44,32,50,34,60,47,70,68,38,47,48,70,51,42,41,35,36,39,23,50,46,44,56,50,39
-Water [is also important]. Over 80% of the brain’s content is water. Every chemical reaction that takes place in the brain needs water, especially energy production. The brain is so sensitive to dehydration that even a minimal loss of water can cause symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, dizziness, confusion and, more importantly, brain shrinkage. The longevity and well-being of your brain are critically dependent upon consuming hard water. This refers to plain water that is high in minerals and natural electrolytes. Most people don’t realize that the water they’re drinking is not actually “water”.
The brain’s preferred fuel is glucose, which comes most readily from carbs. Without ample glucose, you may struggle with brain fog and difficulty focusing. While you want to avoid refined carbs, whole grains contain fiber and help keep your blood sugar on an even keel. (Sharp rises and falls in blood sugar can impair your cells’ ability to uptake glucose because of insulin resistance, explains Malik.)
Harriet Hall, MD also known as The SkepDoc, is a retired family physician who writes about pseudoscience and questionable medical practices. She received her BA and MD from the University of Washington, did her internship in the Air Force (the second female ever to do so), and was the first female graduate of the Air Force family practice residency at Eglin Air Force Base. During a long career as an Air Force physician, she held various positions from flight surgeon to DBMS (Director of Base Medical Services) and did everything from delivering babies to taking the controls of a B-52. She retired with the rank of Colonel. In 2008 she published her memoirs, Women Aren't Supposed to Fly.
I noticed what may have been an effect on my dual n-back scores; the difference is not large (▃▆▃▃▂▂▂▂▄▅▂▄▂▃▅▃▄ vs ▃▄▂▂▃▅▂▂▄▁▄▃▅▂▃▂▄▂▁▇▃▂▂▄▄▃▃▂▃▂▂▂▃▄▄▃▆▄▄▂▃▄▃▁▂▂▂▃▂▄▂▁▁▂▄▁▃▂▄) and appears mostly in the averages - Toomim’s quick two-sample t-test gave p=0.23, although a another analysis gives p=0.138112. One issue with this before-after quasi-experiment is that one would expect my scores to slowly rise over time and hence a fish oil after would yield a score increase - the 3.2 point difference could be attributable to that, placebo effect, or random variation etc. But an accidentally noticed effect (d=0.28) is a promising start. An experiment may be worth doing given that fish oil does cost a fair bit each year: randomized blocks permitting an fish-oil-then-placebo comparison would take care of the first issue, and then blinding (olive oil capsules versus fish oil capsules?) would take care of the placebo worry.
The biohacking movement is trying to overcome its “N=1” problem (in which a sample size includes only the person doing the experimenting) by sharing experiences online or via meetups. But a biohacking group, like any community organized around a common interest, can easily become an echo chamber. James Alcock, Ph.D., a professor of social psychology at York University in Canada and the author of the book Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling, says biohackers may be unwittingly painting one another an unreasonably rosy picture of how well nootropics work—even when they don’t.
Over the years, science has looked into the validity of this date being the most blue of all dates, however there is little evidence to prove this. There is some research that suggests how weekends are a time when people generally feel happier and less anxious, mostly for those that work full-time Monday-Friday, however there is little difference with subjective mood for other days of the week. Some charities such as MIND, have even said that Blue Monday, which is used mainly as a marketing tool to sell products and stories, can also be dangerously misleading and have even set up the hashtag #BlueAnyDay to help dispel the myth of this date.The idea that as a population we are more likely to feel down on the third of fourth Monday of the year can not only trivialise depression as a medical illness that can be life threatening but can also affect those that live with depression and know too well that feelings associated to this illness are not dictated by a single date in the diary.
Modafinil is a stimulant specifically designed to reduce fatigue and sleepiness. It was approved for treatment of narcolepsy in 1998, and although the exact mechanism behind its effects is not fully understood, most research indicates that modafinil also works by inhibiting reuptake of dopamine, which produces effects similar to those of methylphenidate. It’s also believed that by inhibiting dopamine uptake, more acetylcholine (another neurotransmitter) is released by the hippocampus, which leads to improved cognitive performance, specifically memory.

Interesting. On days ranked 2 (below-average mood/productivity), nicotine seems to have boosted scores; on days ranked 3, nicotine hurts scores; there aren’t enough 4’s to tell, but even ’5 days seem to see a boost from nicotine, which is not predicted by the theory. But I don’t think much of a conclusion can be drawn: not enough data to make out any simple relationship. Some modeling suggests no relationship in this data either (although also no difference in standard deviations, leading me to wonder if I screwed up the data recording - not all of the DNB scores seem to match the input data in the previous analysis). So although the 2 days in the graph are striking, the theory may not be right.

These little chemicals prompt the immune system to kick in and fight back against the stress through inflammation, as though stress is an infection. While inflammation helps protect us against illnesses and repairs the body when you do something like cut yourself, chronic inflammation is a different animal. It’s been linked to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, anxiety, high blood pressure and more. (2)

Is lifestyle truly important, though? According to Dr. Lisa, "genes load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger." As someone who grew up very aware of my genetic predisposition (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, breast cancer — you name it and someone in my family has it), I always thought that this weighed heavily on whether or not someone manifests an illness. But, groundbreaking research on epigenetics actually states the contrary.
A constituent of the turmeric spice, curcumin was first discovered for its brain health benefits when epidemiological studies revealed those in regions with a high consumption of the curry spice turmeric had fewer reported cases of cognitive diseases. It is theorized that the unmatched anti-inflammatory power of curcumin, in combination with its unique antioxidant make-up, inhibits the formation of amyloid build up in the brain.
If this is the case, this suggests some thoughtfulness about my use of nicotine: there are times when use of nicotine will not be helpful, but times where it will be helpful. I don’t know what makes the difference, but I can guess it relates to over-stimulation: on some nights during the experiment, I had difficult concentrating on n-backing because it was boring and I was thinking about the other things I was interested in or working on - in retrospect, I wonder if those instances were nicotine nights.
Some people are concerned that when they discontinue the use of nootropics, they will experience cognitive functioning below that of their normal level; however, this is usually not the case, especially regarding nootropics in the racetam class. Discontinuing nootropics will cause a person to lose any benefits experienced on these drugs. In other words, nootropics do not appear to build up the brain in any long-lasting way; their benefits are directly tied to their use. There is no evidence that nootropics erode one’s natural level of cognitive functioning.
Long story short, aging is your brain’s worst enemy. The same applies to all organs of our body, but the brain suffers the most. Both neurotransmitters and neurons are taking the blow too. As a result, the neuron communication is affected. Now, this may seem like the rocket science to you, but it’s enough to say, serotonin and dopamine are the most important neurotransmitters. Without these components, you can forget about good mood. Serotonin and dopamine levels drop at a rate of approximately 10% for every decade you add to your age.
Tuesday: I went to bed at 1am, and first woke up at 6am, and I wrote down a dream; the lucid dreaming book I was reading advised that waking up in the morning and then going back for a short nap often causes lucid dreams, so I tried that - and wound up waking up at 10am with no dreams at all. Oops. I take a pill, but the whole day I don’t feel so hot, although my conversation and arguments seem as cogent as ever. I’m also having a terrible time focusing on any actual work. At 8 I take another; I’m behind on too many things, and it looks like I need an all-nighter to catch up. The dose is no good; at 11, I still feel like at 8, possibly worse, and I take another along with the choline+piracetam (which makes a total of 600mg for the day). Come 12:30, and I disconsolately note that I don’t seem any better, although I still seem to understand the IQ essays I am reading. I wonder if this is tolerance to modafinil, or perhaps sleep catching up to me? Possibly it’s just that I don’t remember what the quasi-light-headedness of modafinil felt like. I feel this sort of zombie-like state without change to 4am, so it must be doing something, when I give up and go to bed, getting up at 7:30 without too much trouble. Some N-backing at 9am gives me some low scores but also some pretty high scores (38/43/66/40/24/67/60/71/54 or ▂▂▆▂▁▆▅▇▄), which suggests I can perform normally if I concentrate. I take another pill and am fine the rest of the day, going to bed at 1am as usual.
A recent study at the University of Innsbruck in Austria found that participants that drank two cups of coffee per day improved memory, reaction time, and neuron signaling, more than the control. More notably, the 676 daily coffee drinker participants experienced less mental decline than nondrinkers over a ten-year period. In other words, bottoms up on your cup of Joe!
It’s not clear that there is much of an effect at all. This makes it hard to design a self-experiment - how big an effect on, say, dual n-back should I be expecting? Do I need an arduous long trial or an easy short one? This would principally determine the value of information too; chocolate seems like a net benefit even if it does not affect the mind, but it’s also fairly costly, especially if one likes (as I do) dark chocolate. Given the mixed research, I don’t think cocoa powder is worth investigating further as a nootropic.
Nuts and seeds are terrific sources of vitamin E, which, according to a 2014 study, can help prevent cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease as you age. Other vitamin E-rich foods include eggs and cooked veggies. And it’s not just your brain that benefits from nuts; your heart will be happier too. Almonds, walnuts, cashews, Brazil nuts, pistachios, and peanuts have been linked to a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, according to a Harvard study. Try these other vitamin E-rich foods.
There are a number of treatments for the last. I already use melatonin. I sort of have light therapy from a full-spectrum fluorescent desk lamp. But I get very little sunlight; the surprising thing would be if I didn’t have a vitamin D deficiency. And vitamin D deficiencies have been linked with all sorts of interesting things like near-sightedness, with time outdoors inversely correlating with myopia and not reading or near-work time. (It has been claimed that caffeine interferes with vitamin D absorption and so people like me especially need to take vitamin D, on top of the deficits caused by our vampiric habits, but I don’t think this is true35.) Unfortunately, there’s not very good evidence that vitamin D supplementation helps with mood/SAD/depression: there’s ~6 small RCTs with some findings of benefits, with their respective meta-analysis turning in a positive but currently non-statistically-significant result. Better confirmed is reducing all-cause mortality in elderly people (see, in order of increasing comprehensiveness: Evidence Syntheses 2013, Chung et al 2009, Autier & Gandini 2007, Bolland et al 2014).
Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition that relates to a collection of behavioural symptoms such as hyperactivity, impulsiveness and inattentiveness. It is most commonly diagnosed in childhood between the ages of 6 and 12 when disruptive behaviour begins to show, however, due to a growing awareness of the condition, it is also becoming common among adults. According to the thinktank Demos, the cost of undiagnosed ADHD in adults in the UK who are unable to work or hold down a full-time job are estimated to cost billions of pounds to the nation. They warn that too many may be going through life struggling, unable to access the support ot diagnosis they need, which means there could be a huge amount of wasted talent.
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The third category was cognitive control - how effectively you can check yourself in circumstances where the most natural response is the wrong one. A classic test is the Stroop Task, in which people are shown the name of a colour (let's say orange) written in a different colour (let's say purple). They're asked to read the word (which is easy, because our habitual response to a word is to read it) or to name the ink colour (which is harder, because our first impulse is to say "orange"). These studies presented a more mixed picture, but overall they showed some benefit "for most normal healthy subjects" - especially for people who had inherently poorer cognitive control.
Since the discovery of the effect of nootropics on memory and focus, the number of products on the market has increased exponentially. The ingredients used in a supplement can tell you about the effectiveness of the product. Brain enhancement pills that produce the greatest benefit are formulated with natural vitamins and substances, rather than caffeine and synthetic ingredients. In addition to better results, natural supplements are less likely to produce side effects, compared with drugs formulated with chemical ingredients.
Thursday: 3g piracetam/4g choline bitartrate at 1; 1 200mg modafinil at 2:20; noticed a leveling of fatigue by 3:30; dry eyes? no bad after taste or anything. a little light-headed by 4:30, but mentally clear and focused. wonder if light-headedness is due simply to missing lunch and not modafinil. 5:43: noticed my foot jiggling - doesn’t usually jiggle while in piracetam/choline. 7:30: starting feeling a bit jittery & manic - not much or to a problematic level but definitely noticeable; but then, that often happens when I miss lunch & dinner. 12:30: bedtime. Can’t sleep even with 3mg of melatonin! Subjectively, I toss & turn (in part thanks to my cat) until 4:30, when I really wake up. I hang around bed for another hour & then give up & get up. After a shower, I feel fairly normal, strangely, though not as good as if I had truly slept 8 hours. The lesson here is to pay attention to wikipedia when it says the half-life is 12-15 hours! About 6AM I take 200mg; all the way up to 2pm I feel increasingly less energetic and unfocused, though when I do apply myself I think as well as ever. Not fixed by food or tea or piracetam/choline. I want to be up until midnight, so I take half a pill of 100mg and chew it (since I’m not planning on staying up all night and I want it to work relatively soon). From 4-12PM, I notice that today as well my heart rate is elevated; I measure it a few times and it seems to average to ~70BPM, which is higher than normal, but not high enough to concern me. I stay up to midnight fine, take 3mg of melatonin at 12:30, and have no trouble sleeping; I think I fall asleep around 1. Alarm goes off at 6, I get up at 7:15 and take the other 100mg. Only 100mg/half-a-pill because I don’t want to leave the half laying around in the open, and I’m curious whether 100mg + ~5 hours of sleep will be enough after the last 2 days. Maybe next weekend I’ll just go without sleep entirely to see what my limits are.

So, I thought I might as well experiment since I have it. I put the 23 remaining pills into gel capsules with brown rice as filling, made ~30 placebo capsules, and will use the one-bag blinding/randomization method. I don’t want to spend the time it would take to n-back every day, so I will simply look for an effect on my daily mood/productivity self-rating; hopefully Noopept will add a little on average above and beyond my existing practices like caffeine+piracetam (yes, Noopept may be as good as piracetam, but since I still have a ton of piracetam from my 3kg order, I am primarily interested in whether Noopept adds onto piracetam rather than replaces). 10mg doses seem to be on the low side for Noopept users, weakening the effect, but on the other hand, if I were to take 2 capsules at a time, then I’d halve the sample size; it’s not clear what is the optimal tradeoff between dose and n for statistical power.

Power-wise, the effects of testosterone are generally reported to be strong and unmistakable. Even a short experiment should work. I would want to measure DNB scores & Mnemosyne review averages as usual, to verify no gross mental deficits; the important measures would be physical activity, so either pedometer or miles on treadmill, and general productivity/mood. The former 2 variables should remain the same or increase, and the latter 2 should increase.

Perhaps the most well-known natural nootropic stimulant and neuroenhancer is caffeine. Caffeine has been shown to prevent memory deficits in experimental models of Alzheimer’s disease and may even restore memory following impairment. In studies performed with college students, caffeine was shown to have particularly potent effects on memory improvement during students’ non-optimal time of day, in this case, early in the morning. Caffeine’s benefits go even further because it’s never found in an isolated vacuum in nature, meaning that it’s always located in some kind of plant such as green tea or bean such as coffee that carry additional beneficial compounds which often enhance the effects of caffeine, including, most notably, certain cholesterols, polyphenols and antioxidants. In fact, one study determined that caffeine alone does not account for the benefits caused by coffee consumption. Rather, the phytochemical content of coffee (coffee contains over 1,000 different natural chemicals!) gives it potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that complement the neuroprotective effects of caffeine on the central nervous system.
The reality is that cognitive impairment and dementia are also on the rise, and sometimes symptoms of forgetfulness and confusion are not so innocuous. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, someone in the United States is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease every 66 seconds. By the middle of this century, that is expected to grow to every 33 seconds.
In this large population-based cohort, we saw consistent robust associations between cola consumption and low BMD in women. The consistency of pattern across cola types and after adjustment for potential confounding variables, including calcium intake, supports the likelihood that this is not due to displacement of milk or other healthy beverages in the diet. The major differences between cola and other carbonated beverages are caffeine, phosphoric acid, and cola extract. Although caffeine likely contributes to lower BMD, the result also observed for decaffeinated cola, the lack of difference in total caffeine intake across cola intake groups, and the lack of attenuation after adjustment for caffeine content suggest that caffeine does not explain these results. A deleterious effect of phosphoric acid has been proposed (26). Cola beverages contain phosphoric acid, whereas other carbonated soft drinks (with some exceptions) do not.
Caffeine, Tulsi and Astragalus: Tulsi is one of the greatest calming adaptogens that exists, trusted and revered for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine and culture. Tulsi has been researched and shown to uplift mood, support digestion, and promote balanced energy. Because it’s also an anxiolytic (causes anti-anxiety effects) tulsi, similar to coffee with L-theanine, does a good job balancing out any over-stimulating effects of the caffeine in coffee. But you can also take things one step further and blend in astragalus, which, in Chinese medicine, is considered a “strong” Ki invigorating herb that provides a stable source of non-crashing energy. Astragalus also contains an enormous variety of saponins, flavonoids, and polysaccharides, and is considered to be a “longevity adaptogen”. Pairing with antioxidant-rich coffee and tulsi produces a match made in longevity heaven. For this blend, which I often use if drinking coffee in the afternoon, I’m a fan of the Four Sigmatic Adaptogen Blend, which contains coffee, astragalus, tulsi and cinnamon.
Chocolate or cocoa powder (Examine.com), contains the stimulants caffeine and the caffeine metabolite theobromine, so it’s not necessarily surprising if cocoa powder was a weak stimulant. It’s also a witch’s brew of chemicals such as polyphenols and flavonoids some of which have been fingered as helpful10, which all adds up to an unclear impact on health (once you control for eating a lot of sugar).
I took 1.5mg of melatonin, and went to bed at ~1:30AM; I woke up around 6:30, took a modafinil pill/200mg, and felt pretty reasonable. By noon my mind started to feel a bit fuzzy, and lunch didn’t make much of it go away. I’ve been looking at studies, and users seem to degrade after 30 hours; I started on mid-Thursday, so call that 10 hours, then 24 (Friday), 24 (Saturday), and 14 (Sunday), totaling 72hrs with <20hrs sleep; this might be equivalent to 52hrs with no sleep, and Wikipedia writes:
With subtle effects, we need a lot of data, so we want at least half a year (6 blocks) or better yet, a year (12 blocks); this requires 180 actives and 180 placebos. This is easily covered by $11 for Doctor’s Best Best Lithium Orotate (5mg), 200-Count (more precisely, Lithium 5mg (from 125mg of lithium orotate)) and $14 for 1000x1g empty capsules (purchased February 2012). For convenience I settled on 168 lithium & 168 placebos (7 pill-machine batches, 14 batches total); I can use them in 24 paired blocks of 7-days/1-week each (48 total blocks/48 weeks). The lithium expiration date is October 2014, so that is not a problem
It’s also loaded with vitamin C — in fact, just one cup provides you with 150 percent of your recommended daily intake. Its high-fiber levels mean that you’ll feel full quickly, too. If you’ve only chowed down on overcooked, tasteless broccoli, you’ll love my Crockpot Beef and Broccoli, Creamy Broccoli Soup and Broccoli Pesto Dip — they’ll turn you into a broccoli lover fast!
An unusual intervention is infrared/near-infrared light of particular wavelengths (LLLT), theorized to assist mitochondrial respiration and yielding a variety of therapeutic benefits. Some have suggested it may have cognitive benefits. LLLT sounds strange but it’s simple, easy, cheap, and just plausible enough it might work. I tried out LLLT treatment on a sporadic basis 2013-2014, and statistically, usage correlated strongly & statistically-significantly with increases in my daily self-ratings, and not with any sleep disturbances. Excited by that result, I did a randomized self-experiment 2014-2015 with the same procedure, only to find that the causal effect was weak or non-existent. I have stopped using LLLT as likely not worth the inconvenience.
Low level laser therapy (LLLT) is a curious treatment based on the application of a few minutes of weak light in specific near-infrared wavelengths (the name is a bit of a misnomer as LEDs seem to be employed more these days, due to the laser aspect being unnecessary and LEDs much cheaper). Unlike most kinds of light therapy, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with circadian rhythms or zeitgebers. Proponents claim efficacy in treating physical injuries, back pain, and numerous other ailments, recently extending it to case studies of mental issues like brain fog. (It’s applied to injured parts; for the brain, it’s typically applied to points on the skull like F3 or F4.) And LLLT is, naturally, completely safe without any side effects or risk of injury.
Modafinil, also known as Provigil, Modalert, and Alertec, was originally made and marketed for sleep disorders, and has been prescribed in the US for this reason since 1998. It was found only by chance to help with focus and concentration, and it is only approved for the treatment of narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, and obstructive sleep apnea.

I have no particularly compelling story for why this might be a correlation and not causation. It could be placebo, but I wasn’t expecting that. It could be selection effect (days on which I bothered to use the annoying LED set are better days) but then I’d expect the off-days to be below-average and compared to the 2 years of trendline before, there doesn’t seem like much of a fall.